


And I Was Suffocating

by Insomnia_Productions



Category: K (Anime)
Genre: Introspective — why Saru left HOMRA, POV First Person, addressing misaki, basically it's his 'simple explanation'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-22
Updated: 2016-03-22
Packaged: 2018-05-28 09:38:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6324190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Insomnia_Productions/pseuds/Insomnia_Productions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>You know I’m an idiot… I won’t get it unless you tell me. So explain it to me in a way I’ll understand.</i>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>A way someone stupid like you could understand…? Easier said than done. But I don’t want you to hate me, and I’m tired of all this fighting—so I’ll try. </p><p> </p><p>yes it's another 11pm one-shot<br/>I may have a problem</p>
            </blockquote>





	And I Was Suffocating

_ You know I’m an idiot… I won’t get it unless you tell me. So explain it to me in a way I’ll understand. _

 

A way someone stupid like you could understand…? Easier said than done. But I don’t want you to hate me, and I’m tired of all this fighting—so I’ll try. 

You say I left HOMRA for SCEPTER 4 because the Blue Clan was the one suited to me. Because the Blue King was  _ always my true King,  _ like Mikoto was yours. As if I, like you, felt a  _ calling  _ to serve my King. As if my leaving was completely justified, with a reason all neatly gift-wrapped, with a shiny bow on top. 

You should know by now, I’m not that  _ noble.  _ I didn’t leave HOMRA because of anything as neat and  _ emotional  _ as that. 

I left for myself, just as I told you. 

What I didn’t tell you, what I couldn’t put into words at the time, was that I was suffocating. 

Nothing new, really—it’s been that way for as long as I can remember; my life in a small, opaque box with a firm lid. And if there ever was a time, long ago, before I was put in that box, I cannot recall. For a long time, I sat in a corner of the box and watched and as the ceiling dipped lower and the walls closed in. For years, years, they crept closer and closer, inching towards me in that slow, taunting manner, closing in on me but making me wait and wait and wait for them to take the final strike. 

And then you appeared. The walls stopped moving. We started to spend more time together, and one day you told me I was your best friend. And the lid came off. The walls opened out, the lid disappeared, and sunlight streamed into the box. For the first time, I could taste the fresh air, the wonderful fresh air—and I loved it. More than I let you see. More than I let myself see, at times, because the lid was always there, in my peripheral vision, propped against a desk or lying on my bedroom floor, waiting to be put back in its place. I could feel it seething, plotting, desperate to return. But it waited, and I was happy. 

Then, one afternoon, you threw a bottle, and Suoh Mikoto caught it, and that evening we were part of HOMRA. I was skeptical, but you seemed so happy that I went along with it. And I continued to ignore the lid in the back of my mind. That was my first mistake, the first I’d made in a long time. Before I knew it, the lid was back on the box, the walls closing in faster than before, and after tasting the fresh atmosphere beyond, my lungs could no longer adjust so easily to the warm, stale air within the box. 

There were times, at first, when I would find relief, moments that seemed brighter than the rest: you, turning from where you walked with Mikoto to call out for me to catch up. You, pausing to ask my opinion on something—anything. You, smiling at me, the way you used to all the time. In those moments, the lid would shift, allowing a gasp of air to enter the box. And I would treasure that air, sustaining myself on just the one sliver for days until the next would come. But days began to turn into weeks, and longer weeks, and before long, I had once again forgotten the world outside the confines of my small, opaque box. 

The day I left HOMRA, the box fell apart. It opened out when I pushed at it, pushed at it and kept pushing with every scratch of my fingernails over the patch of my skin bearing HOMRA’s signature flame. 

It was replaced by a new one, soon after—a blue one, this time. But this box was larger, and it had air holes on every side, large enough to see through, to breathe through. It wasn’t perfect, but at the very least, I could  _ breathe  _ again. Even now, sometimes, those air holes disappear, and I’m left curled in a corner, trying to ration my own breaths. But they always come back, sometimes wider than before. And these walls never close in on me. 

That’s why I left HOMRA, why I joined SCEPTER 4, if you really must know—and I suppose you must. 

For air. 

It’s completely self-serving, and completely void of loyalty or compassion for anyone but myself—and it’s completely the opposite of you. 

But it’s me. 

It’s me—and I’m me—and you like me. 

Now all that’s left for you is to hear me—and, maybe, if you  _ really  _ apply that tiny brain of yours, to understand me. 

**Author's Note:**

> whelp  
> that happened
> 
>  
> 
> idk I just sort of thought of the box analogy and then 11pm happened and voila: a fic was born
> 
> *hugs saru*


End file.
